Great Grains!

this bowl is two servings

Grains were the focus in my Nutrition class last week.

I was very excited about this class since we were able to create our own grain salads based on a list of available grains and ingredients.

Usually we follow a recipe so I was very excited about the chance to be creative in a kitchen with nearly every imaginable ingredient.

The night before class I went through the list and referenced my Flavor Bible to see what I could put together.

If you are interested in cooking at all and don't own a copy of the Flavor Bible, here's a link to its page on Amazon.

Buy it. You'll thank me. I use it several times a week.

I've always love grain salads but never knew how to go about creating them in an adventurous way.

Luckily, Chef put together and easy to follow how to in our lab that I'm summarizing below.

Grain Salad Cheat Sheet

Step 1: Pick a grain. Cook it. Cool it.

Step 2: Choose 3-4 Fruit or Veg. Think about textures and colors. Par cook veg if necessary.

Step 3: Chose 1-3 ingredients from the following categories: Nut/Seed, Dried Fruits, Beans, Cheese, Other.

Step 4: Choose 1-3 Fresh Herbs.

Step 5: Use a Vinegar or Citrus Juice (lemon, lime, or grapefruit) to make a vinaigrette.

Prep your non-grain ingredients. Once grain is cool mix in non-grain ingredients and toss with vinaigrette.

Super simple right?

I made an Apricot Barley Grain Salad with a Ginger Lime Vinaigrette.

Since it is nutrition class, we do a nutritional analysis on each recipe with some amazing software.

 Here is my complete recipe and nutritional analysis.

Ginger Lime Vinaigrette
140g    Veg Oil
70 g     Lime Juice and Zest (about 2 limes)
3/4      TBS Ginger
2TSP   Honey
2 TBS  Cilantro
0.2g     Salt

Apricot Barley Salad with 3TBS of Vinaigrette
1C  Barley
25g Dried Apricot
15g Red Onion
10g Toasted Almond
23g Avocado (1/2 a small avocado)
10g Arugula

most of the fat comes from the vinaigrette